My last outing, A Weekly posting Options

[Crusty]

Awesome how things can turn around in a second! Can't wait to see it!

[lostnewb]

Cant wait to see them all cleaned up.

[fenixsmom]

Did you treat yourself to some bacon snacks afterwards?! (Haha, bacon comment!)

I'm glad it all turned around in the end!!!

[Woody]

Been a while, Going to try to post a few pics.

These are a few of the fluorites I found recently. Lots of the ones I have found this week are twinned, almost all of them are Phantom Fluorites. Anything with
Phantoms in it are always cool. But in these two pieces you actually get to meet the Phantom, well kind of. They have a face in them. The first is just a smiley
face. The second one resembles a Bear face.

Enjoy, Woody.

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[Crusty]

WOODY!!! Glad to see you back on the forum!! Those are some pretty awesome looking Fluorites!

[Denise]

Love the Fluorites!! Very cool finds Woody!

[Woody]

I've been stuck on the wash, rinse, and repeat cycle for quite some time now. That's why I haven't posted up in quite a while. But I have a ton of digital material on my computer that I need to get organized, so I've decided to restart this thread again. Here is a teaser of things to come........ garnets and gold.

[Woody]

Biggest one is about 3/4 inch. Some are completely faceted.

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[Denise]

Good to see you back and posting your prospected goodies Woody!
Those are some sweet Garnets, love how the colors vary!

Thanks for sharing pics with us.

[Woody]

Thanks Denise

Yeah, we have been having fun lately poking around in the creek. Of course the main intent was getting after the gold, but an added bonus has been the size, and amount of garnets. The gold looks
good in the picture, but it does not fill up much of a vial. Some of the Garnets however, are too big to even fit in a vial. They are not necessarily the gemmiest garnets I’ve ever seen but some are well
faceted. In the past I’ve always been a staunch advocate of telling people to keep their nose out of the pan, “meaning that if they were poking around looking at all the small pretty stones, …… then
they were wasting time and needed to be more focused”.

But when you reach into the dredge sluice while it is running and pick out a garnet the size of your thumb nail…. Well that takes a better man than me to stay focused. As it turns out all focus shifts
to garnet dredging, with a little gold on the side. During the clean-up of the sluice I first screened everything down to 3/4 inch. Anything still left in the screen gets chucked back into the creek and
then I classify all the material with a 1/8 inch screen. That’s where all the goodies are and I put everything into a 5 gallon bucket to be taken home and gone through at a later date.

The other day I took a coffee can of this Garnet Gravel and gave it to my sister that lives in the Denver area. She has two children that had a blast going through the rocks and picking out the garnets.
That was by far the best use for that material I’ve ever found. Throw a cup full of gravel and garnets in a pan, add water, Stir in a kid and….. Wal-La….. instant Rockhound!

So the next time someone tells you to keep your nose out of the pan…….. Don’t listen to ‘em. Shrug them off and just keep right at it. After all, ain’t none of us getting rich on the gold….. but maybe
you can find treasures elsewhere!

It feels good to be back, Woody~

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[Crusty]

Been great chatting with you! Look forward to seeing you up at the claim and spending some time around a camp fire!

[relicsncoins]

It will be interesting to see if that layer of garnets exists on our claim.

[Woody]

Hey relicsncoins,

Interesting that you would use the term, "Layer of Garnets", because that is exactly what we found in several different places. If you dig a hole straight down you will soon find that the garnets seem
to stop at a certain depth. At first I thought this was just a fluke in that particular hole I was working but the same scenario repeated in different areas.

Having pondered on this for a while, it kind of makes sense. Everybody that has panned for gold for any amount of time is familiar with the term "Flood Gold". Instantly we understand that the gold
most likely will only be found in the upper layers of material. Without going into the whatnots and whys of it, take that same principle and apply it here with the garnets and you get Flood Garnets!

Many years ago, I used to dredge a short ways up stream from here. It was in a Top secret, high level jujitsu clearance area only but the point I'd like to make is that those large garnets just ain't
there. So the large garnets are entering the drainage somewhere between the two locations and so far, the river has not flooded enough to mix up the entire stream bed. As long as you maintain a
short distance to deposit that material should only be found in the upper gravels of the stream bed. The further you get away from the source the deeper the material is likely to be . Unless you have
a flood of biblical proportions, then all bets are off.

The short answer is, Yeah you will have good garnets there to. Just be mindful that you could dig out from under it.

Good luck, Woody.

[johnnybravo300]

That looks like a good amount of fine gold there too. What is that, a gram or three? Nice cleanup.
And the garnets are amazing as well. I'm usually just trying to pan through that stuff as fast as I can but I should stop and look in there more often haha. Darn cool collection in the pan Woody. It sounds like the creek is giving up some secrets to you. Good job man.

[Woody]

Thanks Johnnybravo,

It looks better in the pan than it did on the scale. I'd be hard pressed to call it even one gram. Had fun sucking it up though. We haven't been back up there for a while now, water levels have been too high. Those banks of
the river are steep in that area and offer very little access unless you can walk along the sides, and with the water covering the entire floor it makes for a hard time just setting your foot. I'll post some reports when we get back to it
though.